Experimental and theoretical investigation of head to tape separation in magnetic recordings

Although the mathematical model of a tape traveling over a cylinder (foil bearing) has been shown experimentally to be valid for a closely similar physical model, its application to predict separation between a tape and a magnetic head has shown large discrepancies. In this work, a modified model of a foil bearing, taking into account some details of the particular geometry of magnetic heads, is used to predict separation and to compare it to experimental results. As a result, the gap between theory and experiment is narrowed down considerably.